


Now I'm Covered in the Colors

by alaynes



Category: All For the Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Canon-Typical Violence, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, M/M, Podfic & Podficced Works, Podfic Available, Soulmate-Identifying Marks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-16
Updated: 2016-02-21
Packaged: 2018-05-21 01:18:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 9,752
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6032830
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alaynes/pseuds/alaynes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nathaniel Wesninski is six years old when his first soulmate mark comes in.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. one

**Author's Note:**

> title comes from halsey's colors

Nathaniel Wesninski is six years old when his first soulmate mark comes in.

It's a dark splotch on his shoulder, the shape and size of a large thumb. At first, Nathaniel thinks it's a bruise, but he doesn't know how it would have gotten there. It doesn't hurt when he pokes it, and so he thinks that maybe, _maybe_ , it comes from his soulmate. That's how it works: when you get any kind of mark on your body, your soulmate gets one in the same spot. After a few minutes of poking and prodding and looking at it in the mirror, he decides that it has to be a soulmark. The skin below is smooth and clear, no ugly bump of a real bruise, and none of the pain either.

When Nathan Wesninski sees the mark, he gives him a real bruise to match.

Nathaniel pretends it's like a message, the way some people write things on their arms and legs with markers to talk to their soulmate, except more personal. A bruise for a bruise. When he thinks about it like that, it's okay, a little.

* * *

Nathaniel stares at his reflection in the mirror, at the spot where the scar from the bullet puckers out of his skin. It's ugly and he wishes he didn't have to look at it, wishes it would just go away. It doesn't hurt anymore, but Nathaniel has seen—has seen bullet holes on his father's shoulders. He knows they don't go away. He doesn't want this, and he doesn't want this to mark his soulmate. But he doesn't have a choice.

Nathaniel shrugs a shirt on and turns away.

* * *

At ten, Nathaniel has no permanent soulmarks to talk about. He has his own marks on his body, and he knows that his soulmate sports those on his chest as well, but Nathaniel has nothing that speaks of his own soulmate, apart from some fading bruises he doesn't want to mention. They feel secret in the same way his own scars are a secret, even though there is no rule about them the way there is about his scars (telling people means punishment).

"I don't have any yet," he says after a few seconds, and leaves it there. The boys opposite him nod solemnly, because soulmates and soulmarks are a very solemn thing.

"I don't have any either," Riko pronounces. "That's why I keep this," he adds, pointing to the number 1 drawn on his face with thick black marker. "If anyone else has it, too, I'll know it's them. And when we're famous, our soulmates will know immediately, too."

Next to Riko, Kevin, who has a 2 drawn on his face in the same spot, nods. Nathaniel wonders whose idea it was, Kevin's or Riko's—it would be kind of cool, he thought, to have a mark like this on your face so anyone could know who your soulmate was immediately.

"Why do you have a 2?" Nathaniel asks Kevin, but it's Riko who answers.

"Because if it was a 1, people might think we were soulmates. Which we're not," Riko clarifies with a wrinkled nose. He brightens after a second, though, adding, "You should do it too. You should be 3."

Nathaniel isn't sure he wants a number on his face, even if it would help him identify his soulmate immediately. He doesn't want to be 3, either. And he isn't sure his father would approve. "Maybe," he mutters after a second, looking away and wondering how he could change the topic. Even though he was the one who started the conversation when he asked about the numbers on their faces, it's not something he really wants to talk about. At home, soulmates isn't something anyone really mentions. He isn't sure if his father would find out and be angry about this, but he doesn't know if he wants to risk it.

And besides, he wants to talk about Exy.

Nathaniel is at Castle Evermore, the biggest Exy stadium in the country, also the oldest. To make it even better, he's here talking to, and about to play with, Riko Moriyama and Kevin Day. Riko's adoptive father and Kevin's mom were the ones who invented the sport, years and years ago. Riko and Kevin practically grew up on a court, and that means they probably know everything about Exy. Nathaniel has played it for ages in small teams, but they're so far away and it takes so long to get there that he doesn't have enough chances in between his other training.

Besides, playing in small teams with their makeshift courts is not nearly as cool as playing at Evermore with Riko and Kevin themselves.

Tetsuji comes into the room and says something to Riko in rapid Japanese. Nathaniel watches, looking back and forth, wondering if it's time to play yet. When Riko stands, Nathaniel grins, and follows.

* * *

Daniel stares at the dye stain around his head and on the back of his neck. His mother was busy, and had given him a look that said she expected him to be finished dyeing his hair when she returned. He did it, of course he did, but he hadn't expected it to get this messy. For a brief second, he wonders if his soulmate will have these, too. The dark red around his head looks unnatural, almost funny. It's when he sees his fingers are stained with it too that he stops. On his fingers, it almost looks like blood. For a second, he can't help but see blood, pouring down his fingers onto the motel carpet below. He thinks his throat is closing in, but he doesn't have time to be scared. He has to be cleaned up when his mom comes back.

Daniel closes his eyes, and starts washing his hands, and prays to anything that's listening that it goes away.

* * *

When the first scar appears on Dominic's wrist, he thinks it could be a mistake. Something. It's a lie, because his soulmate, whoever she is, is not putting scars in her own wrist. He may only be twelve, but he knows what it means to have that kind of scar, and he refuses to believe it of his soulmate.

There are still dozens of colorful bruises that cover Dominic's body, ranging from fresh black-blue to ugly greens and yellows, so many that he can't always remember on sight which are his and which are his soulmate's. He can't help but wonder who he's bound to like this, who is injured and by a harsh hand almost as much as Dominic himself is. Is she on the run, too? Are her parents like his?

Whoever it is, whatever it is, though, Dominic cannot believe that his soulmate would injure herself, and explains the cut away as an accident. A papercut. A fight with a cat. Rubbing against a sharp edge by mistake.

Then the second comes, then the third. His mother's gaze is furious as the scars build, and though they don't bleed and don't pucker like his own injuries, they are there on his wrist regardless, marking him. Eventually, they build enough that they start drawing eyes—careful ones, concerned ones, contemptuous ones.

Dominic starts wearing longer sleeves.

* * *

When James takes his first step on Swiss soil, he wonders for the first time in maybe a year about his soulmate. He's been in Europe for months now, first in Germany and then here. He wonders if they're European, too. As an American, he has always imagined a pretty blonde American girl as his soulmate. Maybe now that he's here, they'll never meet. James feels bad, but only for a second. That would probably be better for her, anyway.

* * *

Stefan is fifteen years old and does not believe in soulmates, destined for each other.

This is not entirely true. He believes they exist, knows he has one, has had one for years—the many many old cuts and new bruises, not his, that pepper his skin are testament to it. But Stefan sleeps with a gun under his pillow and spends his days looking over his shoulder and wondering when his father's men will catch up to him. When will the next fight be? What is the next time he has to run, leaving every place behind?

He and his mother move from city to city every few weeks, always careful not to speak to too many people, not to draw attention to themselves. Every time his eye lands on a girl he thinks is pretty, his mother sees it, and by now he knows better than to even look. Girls are dangerous, a distraction, and when you're on the run for your life there is no room for distractions. The only person Stefan has talked to beyond a single sentence in months is his mother, and months later things will be the same.

Even if he ever finds his soulmate, he is going to do the smart thing, the surviving thing: he is going to turn around and leave.


	2. two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Various people see Neil's marks one way or another, and Neil is somewhat confused by their reactions.

Neil decides the day that Coach Hernandez sends the papers in to Wymack that he is making the biggest mistake of his life. Playing Exy in Millport is dangerous enough, and he knows that if his mother were here she would have bruised him black and blue for the first. He doesn't know what she would do for the second.

The spotlight is a bad place for people who don't exist. It is probably a worse place for people who are on the run. Neil goes anyway. He is so, so, _so_ sorry.

* * *

As Abby looks at Neil's scars, there is something in her eyes that he doesn't recognize. It isn't quite pity, it isn't quite confusion. He doesn't think he wants to know what it is, really—and he doesn't want it, either. Confusion means questions, and questions mean trouble, and Neil hasn't even met the rest of his teammates yet. Pity is for someone else, and he won't accept it. Her eyes trail over his marked chest to the criss-cross of scars that aren't his on his arms, and she opens her mouth. Closes it.

"Do I have track marks?" he asks, almost forcefully.

She lets it go. When Neil dresses, her eyes linger on his sleeves, but he knows she's thinking of the scars below. He wonders if like this, without feeling the smooth skin below, she can tell they aren't his. He doesn't ask; instead, he pulls his sleeves further down, and keeps his eyes front.

* * *

The shirt Coach gives him is baggy and large enough to cover his chest, but not the ends of his arms. At the moment, Neil is so thankful for the change of clothes that he doesn't ask for something with sleeves, even though all of him is rebelling at the thought of having the marks on display. Coach looks, but doesn't ask. When Andrew arrives, he gives the two of them sharp looks and insists he isn't going anywhere while they talk things out, but leaves them to it when Neil starts speaking in German.

Andrew's eyes skip to Neil's arms, the marks, as he pushes them away. It lingers for a second, just a second, but Neil notices. He doesn't justify himself, even though he knows they go against his story—against who he is, really. He's tried so hard to survive, on the run for so long that he's turned himself to nothing, nothing and no one. Self-harm does not go hand in hand with survival. But Andrew doesn't ask, just stares at him with something intense in his eyes, so Neil doesn't say.

"Let me stay," he says instead, quietly. He feels like all his energy has gone into that story, half-truth and half-lie. The lies were easy; the truth has sucked at his strength and left him exhausted. "I'm not ready to give this up yet."

* * *

Neil discards the first outfit Kevin throws at him immediately, because he can see the sleeves. The scars may not be his, but he's sure as hell not about to go onto a TV show with them on display. "Sleeves," he says simply, and Kevin turns to forage for another shirt, which he throws at Neil's feet with the rest of the clothes.

Neil does change, slowly and uncomfortably to keep his skin hidden, pulling his old shirt out from under the new one. When he turns around, Kevin's eyes are bright with something like confusion. "What?" he snaps, defensive. What did Kevin see that has him looking like that? Just a second ago he had said that he didn't care about his scars. For a second, he's frozen. Did he recognize something? Neil has very little marking his back, but he can never be sure, because he can't see most of it. If there is something—if Kevin remembered  _now_ —

But Kevin is shaken out of whatever confusion he was caught in by Neil's question. He just snorts, and the irritated expression that returns to his face is familiar enough that Neil manages to unclench his fist. Whatever it was, Kevin hasn't recognized him. And that's enough for now.

* * *

Neil doesn't notice the cuts until he's staring at the key in his hand and his chest is full with something that isn't fear or shock or horror. He wants to look, wonder where those bright red cuts on his palm came from, but they don't hurt, so he doesn't consider them. Instead, he looks at the key Andrew had pressed into his palm, and feels his heart racing, a quick thrum-thrum-thrum that's nothing like being afraid, and everything like it. "Home," he whispers. He hasn't had a home in years. He didn't think he would ever have one. But now—now he does, even if he's going to die before the next year is over. That means something.

"Welcome home, Neil."

* * *

Neil learns from Renee that the Foxes, or most of them, don't really put much faith into the idea of soulmates. Plenty of them have soulmarks, and Nicky has talked at length about how he and Erik sometimes write messages to each other, but apart from maybe Nicky, none of them really believe in it.

Neil thinks he understands; soulmates are for people who are, maybe, less broken. The Foxes have all been through enough that their faith in abstract concepts like a soulmate, someday, are gone. Dan doesn't sport Matt's track marks on her arm, and Seth didn't have the bright pink patch that colours Allison's elbow. They were together all the same, and it didn't matter that one day they might meet someone who was "destined" for them. He thinks that explains why they have so many bets ongoing about who is hooking up with whom: because none of them really care to wait for The One. He hadn't really talked to people in school, but he knew that people tended to do that—hold out.

Neil himself hasn't believed that he is really destined to be with his soulmate for years; a life on the run wasn't conducive to things like romance. In any case, he isn't interested in anyone now. He hadn't lied when he said he didn't swing; he doesn't think he can be attracted to anyone. His mother had ensured that, or maybe his life had.

"Then why don't you and Andrew work?" he asks Renee, after he learns that she doesn't care about the concept either.

"I'm sorry," Renee says after a second. "Work how?"

"Why haven't you asked him out?"

She looks confused, but when he says he isn't interested, she apparently takes it at face value. There is still something on her face that stops him short, but he can't understand what. He wonders what Andrew and Renee talk about on their own that's brought this expression to her face. He has no explanation for why he wants to know—nothing that will make sense to her, anyway. So all he says is, "Never mind."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so three things (okay, like. four. five?)
> 
> 1\. i can't believe people actually read this?? thank you so much to everyone who commented or kudos-ed! also i've changed the number of chapters from 3 to 6, but i am definitely going to complete this!  
> 2\. this is canon compliant, and will continue to be. this means i'm stealing tons of conversation from in-book, just because it's relevant to my au. this is a terrible practice, and you should probably detest me for it (also! it's not going to happen in-fic, but you should definitely not think of every conversation andrew and neil ever have, and put them in the context of soulmates, because it will hurt you)  
> 3\. still pretty minimal andrew here, but that changes next chapter. also! i'm sorry in advance. you know what's coming next, and it hurts  
> 


	3. three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Neil sees Andrew's arms, and understands.

Neil has never seen Andrew without his armbands, so when he takes them off and Neil sees the lighter shade of scarred skin, he stops. It's startling, because this is Andrew, because it doesn't make _sense_ —but it's familiar, too. He grabs his wrist immediately, starts to turn it over, certain that there will be nothing, that he imagined it.

Andrew grabs Neil's forearm, holds onto it hard. "Just so we're clear, I'll kill you." Neil knows he isn't bluffing, doesn't dare to call him out on it. Instead, he spreads his fingers out on the underside of his arm, feels the bump of destroyed skin. He can't see the marks, only saw the beginning of them before Andrew turned his arm away, but he thinks he recognizes them.

He lets go. He doesn't shake his head, or maybe he does. He can't be sure, because his head is somewhere else, coming to conclusions that cannot possibly be true. He's wrong.

He has to be wrong.

* * *

Everyone stares at him. Aaron and Nicky at first, then Wymack when he arrives, and then Betsy Dobson and Abby. Andrew is the only one who doesn't. Neil doesn't ask what it is that they're looking at. He doesn't want to know. There is dried blood under his fingernails (it's not his mother's, it's not _his mother's, it's not_ ), Aaron is under arrest, the Foxes season has gone to hell, and he doesn't want to know.

* * *

When Neil goes to buy new clothes, he has no choice but to look in the mirror. His hair is black and his eyes are brown, not blue, but the image makes him recoil all the same. His face is almost as much of a mess as Andrew's; bruises discolor his skin in patches of dark blue, and cuts leave dark red lines on his face. He hasn't been hit, hasn't taken a single injury. These scars don't hurt the way a real cut, a real bruise, would. These marks are not his.

There is blood, too, on his shirt, and for a second the changing room is filled with the stench of sour fresh blood. Neil gags into his hands, and tries to be relieved when the smell is gone, but he can't. The pool of horror that's gathered in his chest, his throat, won't go away. He thinks of Andrew's words earlier, wonders what he thought of the marks on Neil's face. Does he think Neil was in a fight, or does he know? It's hard to tell in Andrew's drugged state. When they talked earlier, he didn't indicate in any way that this meant anything to him. Maybe he hasn't registered his own face, his own injuries, yet.

Neil pulls up his sleeve and looks at his own wrist, the old marks that are as familiar to him as his own scars. He would never hurt himself; but apparently Andrew—

He doesn't want to think about it, so he leaves the room, and definitely does not think about it.

* * *

When he laughs, Neil stands his ground, even though the sound cuts through him, reminds him of his harder laughter from a few hours ago. "Trust you," he says, his tone dripping with disbelief. "You lie, and lie, and lie, and you think I'll trust you with his life? Because of those?" He doesn't let go of Neil's chin to gesture, but his eyes go to the marks on Neil's face.

"Those don't mean anything, you know that. They're just marks."

This, he cannot budge on. He hasn't come to terms with the fact that Andrew's bruises are on his face. He knows what it means, but he cannot comprehend the idea that this is a thing. He doesn't believe in two people being destined for each other, and for years he has known that if he ever found his soulmate, he wouldn't do anything about it. He can't. But he can't run, either, like he had imagined—not now.

Andrew stares at him for a long second, then seems to find whatever he's looking for. He nods, short and firm, and Neil knows they aren't going to talk about this again. Later, when he's accepted that this is a fact that Neil cannot change, he will be relieved about this.

"So why do I trust you, Neil Josten?"

"Don't trust 'Neil'," Neil says. "Trust me."

"Oh, but who are you? Do you have a name?"

"If you need one, call me Abram." It's a compromise; not a lie, no, but not a first name. He cannot give that, he can't even say it. He doesn't know if he can even think it.

"Should I believe that?"

"I'm named after my father," he says. "Abram is my middle name; it's the name my mother used when she as trying to protect me from his work. Ask Kevin if you don't believe me. He would know."

"Maybe I will," Andrew says, but he doesn't move away from Neil, doesn't turn to Kevin. Neil hesitates—he doesn't want to bring up their shared marks a minute after dismissing them, but he knows that that is the best proof he can offer Andrew of his ability to stay, to bear whatever Riko rains down on them.

"You've seen my scars," he says after a second. Andrew will, no doubt, have seen them as they formed. He will know them as well as Neil knows the marks on his arms, because they're his as much as they are Neil's, in a way. To emphasize, he takes Andrew's hand and drags it under his hem, to the scarring on his chest. Andrew's eyes follow, and he knows what he's seeing, even if Neil's shirt means he does not actually see the scars themselves. "Nothing Riko does can make me leave him. We will both be here when you get back."

"I _have_ seen them. Which means you lied to me. These are too rough and too old. They're not from a life on the run."

"The story I gave you was mostly true. I might have left out some details, but I know you're not surprised by that. You know what I look like. If we survive this year and you're still interested, you can ask me later. I think it's your turn in our secrets game, anyway."

Andrew pulls free, folds his arms over his chest. When the laugh comes, Neil doesn't even make a face. Finally, he turns to Kevin, speaks out in English. "It'll have to do, won't it?"

* * *

"And you, Neil? Are you alright?"

Her eyes are meaningful, and while she isn't looking at the marks on his face, he knows she means them. Neil is almost startled. Everyone else had assumed Neil got into a fight, and Neil hadn't bothered to correct them. Renee knows, he realizes. With the realization comes a question: how long has she known? Did she know when they talked about her and Andrew?

The only answer that makes sense is yes. She hadn't said anything, though, and neither had Andrew—because of course he knew, too. The idea that Renee had known and Andrew hadn't is ridiculous. It's confusing, but he can't ask Renee why Andrew never said.

"I'm fine," he says instead of asking, mind still reeling.

* * *

Neil realizes the corner he's backed himself into twenty minutes after entering the room he shares with Matt, while he attempts to wash up. He tries to keep his eyes on the top of his head, the dyed black almost a comfort, but it isn't possible. His eyes keep straying to the bruises on his face—the soulmarks.

Neil's mother had not had a soulmate. If she had, he had died years before she ran away with Neil. In those years, she got not one mark, and all hers had already disappeared. His mother and he had not talked much, but this they had talked about. When she caught him looking at the scars on his arms or the motley of bruises on his body, mostly. She had tugged at his hair in that way she had, hard enough to pull them out if she really tugged, and said, "soulmates are a distraction."

It was an oft-repeated idea. Girls are a distraction. Soulmates are a danger. Feelings, attraction, both threats. On an unrelated note, Exy was a bad idea too. The only thing that mattered was survival. When exactly Neil had ingested that information, he isn't sure. All he knows is that for years and years, he has known that he doesn't care about any of this, doesn't want any of this.

He doesn't want Andrew now, either.

Or, no. He wants Andrew to care about Exy. He wants Andrew to be—safe, maybe. He wants Andrew at his back and Kevin at his side on court. But that is all. That is it.

And the idea that he is meant to want him some other way scares him. The idea that according to someone, he and Andrew are—what? Destined for each other? Soulmates? That is scarier. Neil has never been anything for anyone, not even his mother, really. He wants to be more than nothing, he wants to be real, wants to be someone people remember—but he doesn't want to be someone's soulmate. He doesn't want _this_ to mean anything now.

Before he knows it, he's checking his eyes for slipped contacts, checking the roots of his hair for the color. He's halfway out of the room and to his safe, but he makes himself stop.

He has said that he will not go. He has promised to protect Kevin. He has used his own words to bind himself here, and that chafes already. He wants to stay, of course he does, but not at the risk of this. He could run, he thinks wildly. Forget what Riko had said, forget about Kevin, forget about Exy. Forget about Andrew, too, as unlikely as that will be with the marks on his arms.

But he can't.

Neil sits on the bed, forces himself to calm down. Andrew is Andrew, he repeats in his mind. That is never happening—especially not after what he knows now. And they had agreed that it meant nothing. He had said Neil was interesting once, but anything could happen once he came off his drugs. He might hate Neil, might decide he isn't worth his interest or attention.

Somehow, the thought of Andrew being Andrew is comforting where the thought of Andrew being his soulmate (of even having a soulmate) is terrifying. Slowly, slowly, Neil calms down. By the time Matt enters the room, Neil is practically relaxed.

* * *

"You're not going," Kevin says. "Do you know what he'll do to you?"

"Do you know what he'll do to Andrew if I don't? I don't have a choice. I have to go. You have to trust me."

Kevin looks at Neil askance, and Neil knows what he's thinking. It's the same thing Riko thought, too. But they're wrong.

Neil has always lived in a world where a soulmate is just a word, just a title, and his life has always been too real for something as abstract as that to mean so much to him. This is not because Andrew is his "soulmate". Riko's words, his snide I heard you had some very colourful marks after Drake was through with Andrew, didn't mean half as much as the knowledge that Riko had and would hurt him—again. This is because Andrew is his teammate—because he offered him his protection, months ago.

"He will break you," Kevin says. The certainty in his voice comes from experience, Neil knows.

"He wishes he knew how."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you, again, for all the kudos and comments!  
> in other news i finished writing this, so i can keep putting up a chapter a day!


	4. four

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Neil returns from Evermore, and the team finds out a thing.

When he sees Andrew, Neil feels immediately, immediately sick.

He's wearing a black turtleneck and jeans, the same ones he had been wearing when he left, but that isn't the point. The few inches of his hands that are bared are covered in bright red gashes, like old cuts, but they aren't his. Neil knows without seeing that the rest of his body is covered in marks that aren't his, too.

He knows, objectively, that Andrew is his soulmate. This is a knowledge he cannot rid himself of now that he knows, but he also knows how little it means to him, that word. How little it means to Andrew. Somewhere in the weeks between last seeing him and now, he forgot what else being a soulmate meant. He had looked at his own scars at Coach's place, and forgotten that they would reflect on Andrew's body.

(he didn't—he hadn't—)

There is a bandage on Andrew's face, in the same spot as Neil's. If he looked below it, he would see a 4.

* * *

Andrew takes the bandage off as soon as they're on the roof, as though looking for confirmation, though of course he knows what's below it. Neil wonders when it had shown up on his face, what he had thought. He had to have known that this wasn't by choice—of course not. What had he thought every time a new bruise appeared on his skin? What conclusion had he drawn?

"Did I break my promise, or were you keeping yours?" he asks, his hand still in the air, a breath away from Neil's face.

"Neither."

Andrew taps the 4 with one finger, shakes his head. "This is a new low, even for you."

"I'm not wearing it by choice," Neil snaps. Finding out that he had been meant as property, nothing more than an investment, nothing more than Exy, had hurt enough. It's almost worse to know that it's true; Neil Josten is little more than Exy, and Nathaniel is nothing at all. Except now, he is expected to be Nathaniel. The 4 is a mark of ownership, the hair and eyes a reminder that he is Nathaniel Wesninski, not Neil Josten.

His choice is the last thing involved here.

"You chose to go to Evermore."

"I came back."

"Riko let you go," Andrew corrects. "We are doing too well this year and your feud is too public. No one would have believed you willingly transferred to Edgar Allan mid-season." He pushes the bandage into Neil's hand, and when he speaks up again, Neil expects something. A laugh. A smile too wide to be natural. There is nothing; of course there is nothing. "I wanted your answer first."

This is yet another time Andrew has kept a secret of his. Neil doesn't know what to say. Thank you isn't quite right, but neither is anything else. When he doesn't speak, Andrew continues: "I'm not keeping a bandage on for long. If you don't tell them, I'm taking it off tomorrow."

Neil nods. "I'll tell them tomorrow." It makes sense to get it over with for the whole team at once. Like, he thinks with no humor, ripping off a band-aid. And then everyone (everyone who matters) will know how Neil has been branded.

That's not all they will know, he realizes as he looks at the matching bandage on Andrew's cheek. When Neil returned from Columbia with a face ruined with Andrew's bruises, the team assumed he got into a fight. Apart from Andrew's group and Renee, the team don't know yet that he and Andrew are—soulmates. Tomorrow, they would know. He idly wonders what this will mean for their ongoing bet about Andrew and Renee.

Andrew speaks up then, snapping him out of other thoughts. "You weren't supposed to leave Kevin's side. Did you forget?"

"I promised to keep him safe," Neil says. "I didn't say I'd hound him every step of the way like you do. I kept my end of the deal." He would never have broken it, of course not. But this went beyond Kevin—it went to him. And to Andrew.

"But not like this." Andrew says. Neil wonders what he means: not like this, not allowing Riko to win? Or not like this, sacrificing yourself? Or is it both? "You said this had nothing to do with Kevin. Why did you go?"

Neil can't say it. He has to. "Riko said if I didn't, Dr. Proust would—"

Andrew claps a hand on his mouth. The bile in Neil's throat threatens to overflow. He's failed, he's failed. There is something horrible in his throat, in the back of his mouth, rising up his nose. All this, and it was all for nothing. Andrew doesn't even look concerned; of course not, because it's his own problem. Neil thinks he and Andrew are like opposites, maybe, just here. Neil has spent his whole life being self-serving, being ready to run away and abandon all others if it means his survival. Andrew puts little energy into own trauma beyond simple survival, but when it came to Nicky, when it came to Aaron, when it came to Kevin, he is there and standing at their backs.

"Do not make the mistake of thinking I need your protection."

Neil thinks of the bruises that had colored his own body when he was twelve. He thinks of Andrew's harsh whisper, he was deferring his enlistment. He thinks of a foster home with a woman who loved him.

"I had to try If I had the chance to stop it and did nothing, how could I face you again? How could I live with myself?"

"Your crumbling psyche is your problem, not mine," Andrew says, and Neil barely holds back a snort. "I said I would keep you alive this year. You make it infinitely more difficult for me when you actively try to get yourself killed."

Neil does not say: _too late_. He already knows he is going to die this year.

"You spend all this time watching our backs," he says instead. "Who's watching yours? Don't say you are, because you and I both know you take shit care of yourself."

"You have a hearing problem. Too many balls to the helmet, perhaps. Can you read lips? The next time someone comes for you, stand down and let me deal with it. Do you understand?"

Neil's answer is immediate. "If it means losing you, then no."

"I hate you," Andrew says. It almost comes as a relief. "You were supposed to be a side effect of the drugs."

Neil frowns. "I'm not a hallucination.

"You are a pipe dream."

"Which part?" he shoots back immediately, and it's almost a joke. Neither of them asked for this. Andrew doesn't smile.

* * *

Kevin and Riko had been the welcome party for Andrew, all that time ago, when Kevin was still a Raven and Andrew wasn't yet a Fox. Logically, Neil knows that Andrew is not Jean, is not him; had he joined the Ravens, he would have been just another player, not one of Riko's toys. He knows that he would not have a number like Neil does; he would have a number on his jersey, an identity as a Raven, a partner in their matched sets—but nothing on his face.

Except now, he has something. In this world, the 4 doesn't belong to him, but in Neil's nightmare, it does. In the dream, Andrew stands to Riko's left, and Kevin on his right. When Neil tries to say that he is Neil Josten, Andrew's racquet flies out and marks him in the face, hits him just where his own tattoo is. He is not Neil, he is Nathaniel. He is not Neil. He is not—

When Neil looks up on his knees, Andrew's own face is a mess of bruises, but he's smiling. Riko leans into him, gives him a cruel smile, says, "we took him because it meant we had you, too."

Neil wakes up, shaken and sick, but he can't remember his dream.

* * *

Andrew gives him a quiet look once Nicky returns with Allison. Neil doesn't need it translated; he stands, slowly, painfully. He was planning to get their attention with a cleared throat, but when they see him trying to stand up, they all turn to look.

"Riko wants me to transfer to the Ravens. He said I could finish this year with the Foxes, but I'd move to Edgar Allan this fall." He pauses to get himself under control, because talking about it isn't easy. He raises a hand to his face, but then stops. "They inked me in preparation."

He pulls his bandage off and tries not to stare at his feet as the room is coloured with angry shouts. Nicky is mute in his horror, but Dan is on her feet. Allison lets out an angry screech of are you kidding me? Matt looks like he's about to hit Kevin all over again, despite Andrew's presence.

"I thought you should all know about this in case he says anything. This doesn't matter. I'm still a Fox."

Dan starts to say something, but Wymack cuts in before she can start. "If we're all satisfied, we still have a season to play." Dan opens her mouth again, closes it, and sits back down. Neil sits back down, too, crushing the bandage in his hands. Next to him, Andrew pulls his own off while Coach is speaking, quiet enough that no one notices.

Twenty minutes later, once lunch has arrived, Matt sees the matching marks on their faces. His "holy shit" is enough to draw everyone's attention to it. Neil tries not to look down and away like he's embarrassed about this as almost everyone's attention is on him for the second (third?) time that day, but it's a struggle. Andrew seems unfazed. Neil wonders what it would take to make him pause.

* * *

"I've never had friends before. I don't know how this works. I'm trying, but it's going to take time."

Neil doesn't bother to say that he couldn't have told them the truth about where he was going over Christmas anymore than he could have about Andrew. He doesn't say that he doesn't have time—by May, he will be dead. That's okay, though. They don't need to know that yet.

Fortunately, Dan accepts his apology. Before she leaves, she says, "If you want to talk about this," with a gesture to the four on his face, "or that," and then another to the bruises covering his body, "we're here." Neil nods, but he thinks she knows as well as he does that he isn't going to talk to them.

When he leaves the room, he hears Allison saying something about paying up.

* * *

They're in the middle of practice, Neil slowly trying to move faster without straining any of his injuries. He's on his own because Kevin has ruled that he musn't tear something, because that would make him completely useless in a real match. He's in a corner, practicing passes with a wall, disgruntled at his inability to play yet. He's in the middle of cursing Kevin (but also himself) when a racquet appears in front of him, and there is a loud loud shout.

It's Nicky's. Allison had body-smacked him hard enough for his racquet to hurtle out of his hands and five feet away towards where Neil is.

Neil tries to dodge, but it's too late for him, and the end of the racquet hits him solidly on the side of his face.

"Shit, Neil, are you okay!" Nicky is running towards him immediately, but Neil only shakes his head. This is nothing; it wouldn't even hurt if it weren't for the already-present other bruises.

"I'm fine," Neil says. Nicky doesn't stop, but he does roll his eyes.

"You're forming a bruise—oh, wow. That is going to be ugly," Nicky says when he's close enough, and Neil almost sighs. He's had enough bruises to last himself a lifetime, but Exy is a violent sport. This isn't the first time he's been injured on court or in practice, and it definitely won't be the last.

On the other side of the court, Matt laughs, loud and surprised enough that Neil looks. In the goalkeeper's square, a very irritated-looking Andrew stands, a bruise blooming on his own face.

"That is so weird," Allison announces.

Neil almost smiles.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so that last thing was there literally because? it felt too serious what a mess
> 
> thank you all for the comments and kudos!


	5. five

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Doesn't mean I wouldn't blow you."

"Doesn't mean I wouldn't blow you."

"You never said anything." It's an accusation as much as a fact. Neil's mind is spinning with Andrew's hand over his mouth and Andrew at his back and Andrew handing him the warm key and telling him to stay—but also of Andrew with the scars on his wrists and Andrew with his knowledge of all Neil's scars, and Andrew hiding the number on his face because he wanted his answer first.

The fact is that Neil and Andrew both said, months ago, that the shared marks on their body and the little fact that they were, technically, soulmates didn't mean anything. And Andrew has said repeatedly that he hates him. Neil has spent all this time thinking this was okay. Andrew didn't care about soulmates anymore than he did, so it didn't matter that they were. Nothing was ever going to happen.

Except, apparently, Andrew _likes_ him. And apparently Roland has noticed. Roland, who doesn't even know about their marks.

"Why should I have?" Andrew responds, casually. Like this isn't making Neil's head spin. "Nothing will come of it."

"Nothing." He feels like he's had a revelation dropped on him, but Andrew is relaxed.

"We said they were just marks."

"They are just marks. That has nothing to do with this." When Neil stares, still a little disbelieving, Andrew continues, "I'm self-destructive, not stupid. I know better."

"Okay," he says.

It is not okay.

* * *

Aaron is straight to the point. "There is nothing between you and my brother."

Neil nods, because he's right. Aaron doesn't ask again. He doesn't look satisfied, doesn't look disgruntled, doesn't look anything—he just turns away. Two minutes later, he's talking to Nicky about something, and looks like this conversation hadn't fazed him at all.

Neil spends the rest of the evening wondering why he had asked now.

* * *

When Neil wakes up, Nicky is leaning over him. This early, he doesn't register that it is only Nicky, and he headbutts him hard enough for Nicky to bounce backwards with a pained groan. Neil's own head hurts, just a little, but not enough to warrant a yelp like that.

"Shit, Neil! It was just a joke—" he starts, then breaks off to swear. Neil frowns; his reaction was for Nicky's presence, not for something else he'd done.

"What do you mean?" he asks, then sees the marker that's in Nicky's hand. Before he can even ask, there is a bang in the living room, followed by what sounds like a whooping cough. Neil scurries out of bed, leaving the room to see what happened.

It's Andrew. Matt is almost doubled over in what could be pain, but Neil doesn't know any reason Andrew would have hit him this time. "What happened?" he shouts, but Andrew doesn't listen, just rams past the bedroom door to Nicky, who seems to be violently coughing now himself. As he passes, Neil notices a lot of things at once. Matt straightens up, and Neil realizes he's not in pain. He's laughing.

And Andrew has what looks like a sparkly butterfly taking over his cheek.

After ten minutes of Nicky howling in pain, Matt stifling laughter, and Andrew glowering furiously at him in his bathroom as he scrubs and scrubs at his face, Neil gives up. Nicky holds up the marker, and it clearly says permanent.

This time, he thinks, he's going to kill Nicky himself.

* * *

When Neil was ten, he ran away from home with his mother. When he was eleven, he gave up the idea that they were going to have a home again. When he was fifteen, he gave up the idea of ever finding, let alone knowing, his soulmate. For eight years he was certain he was going to die alone in a foreign country where he knew no one, and where no one knew him. Neil Josten was nothing—he would die as nothing, too. Everything that makes a person real, that makes a person a person, was not his to have.

Except: he has keys to a car, to a dorm room, to a court. He has a key Andrew pressed into his palm. He has friends. He has a team. He's still going to die, but when he does, people will know his name. He is, maybe, almost, real.

And then Andrew presses another key into his hand, calls it just a key. Nothing about this is "just". It is all overwhelming—the feeling in his chest is something sinking and lifting at once, something heavy and warm that anchors him without chaining.

"Don't look at me like that. I am not your answer, and you sure as fuck aren't mine."

"I'm not looking for an answer. I just want—" He doesn't know what he wants, really. He wants something that doesn't pull his feet out from under him. He wants something to help him stand, and be real. Andrew is not his soulmate the way people mean it—and Neil wouldn't let him be, either. He doesn't want that, and definitely doesn't need it now, when he's going to die. All he wants is. Is. "I'm tired of being nothing," he says in the end. It was easy to be nothing when it was all he remembered. It isn't easy anymore.

Andrew stared at him like that once, months and months ago, after the first disastrous trip to Columbia. Neil had stood in Coach Wymack's home, his arms and their marks on display. Andrew must have realized then what they meant, but Neil knows him too well to think that he let him stay because of that.

"You are a Fox. You are always going to be nothing." Neil almost cracks a smile, because being a Fox is exactly what makes him not-nothing. At the same time, Andrew is maybe not wrong, either. "I hate you."

"Nine percent of the time you don't."

"Nine percent of the time I don't want to kill you. I always hate you." Neil doesn't know if he believes him—he says it so often it's almost lost its heat—and voices that.

"No one asked you," Andrew shoots back, and then he catches hold of Neil's face and leans in to kiss him.

* * *

It is, he admits to himself, probably a mistake to experiment like this with someone that destiny or fate or someone had decided is his soulmate. But at the same time, Andrew is probably the safest to do it with—and also currently the only one Neil could consider. He hasn't been attracted to anyone in years, but he is to Andrew right now. He doesn't know quite what that means, but he does know he wants to kiss him again, kiss him like he did days ago on the roof.

"It's fine if you hate me," he says.

"Good," Andrew says, "because I do."

This is the important part: when he dies, this will stop mattering. This will be nothing more than a minor inconvenience to him, because he doesn't care about Neil. It will be a shame for the Foxes next season to lose another player, but Coach is getting six new ones, so they should be more than enough. Anyway, Andrew doesn't care about Exy. Before long, Andrew would probably forget. When your soulmate dies, all the marks on your body disappear; it's how you know they're dead. He supposes Andrew will not be unhappy when the number on his face and the battleground of his chest are gone. Neil would be happy if his own disappeared—but not the marks on his arm.

That's an odd thought, so he doesn't think about it. Instead, he focuses on Andrew, lets himself be pushed to the carpet, lets him take his hands and pin them over his head.

"Stay," Andrew says. Neil doesn't know where he would go. And Andrew kisses him.

Neil's mother was right: this is a distraction. It takes over him, just as it did last time, until the only thing in his mind is just this, more, and Andrew. His lips are rough, his teeth bite against Neil's lips, and with one hand he presses Neil's hands loosely above his head. He kisses him like that's all there is, and maybe it's true. His body is hot above him, but it's comforting, and the feeling of being anchored without being chained returns—he isn't being held down, not quite, but it's close enough that he would be terrified at another time. He isn't.

When they pull away, Neil is struck by how easy it would be for that to distract him from survival. It is maybe a good thing that he's already given up on surviving. If he hadn't, Andrew might have been the death of him.

* * *

With cold concrete at his back and Andrew's heat above him, it can become a difficult task staying on the ground. Having Andrew kissing him, one hand on his chest, helps. Andrew kisses like he wants to ruin Neil, all rough and ready to bruise, but he holds himself away from the ground all the same.

Neil is allowed to touch his head, so he always curls his hands into Andrew's hair, keeping him as close as he can. It's better than keeping his hands in his pockets, or spread on the concrete, where his fingers inevitably curl into themselves and drag along the floor.

Andrew pulls away after what might have been a minute or an hour, but Neil isn't quite done yet. He lifts his head to press his lips to the side of Andrew's neck.

The shiver isn't obvious, but Neil thinks he feels it anyway. That, he knows, will never get old. When Andrew doesn't move his hands away from under Neil's shirt, though, Neil keeps going, using his hands to bring Andrew's head closer. He opens his mouth and nips at him, and Andrew makes an unholy noise that goes straight through Neil like a shock, pulls away. For a second, Neil freezes—but Andrew just drags him down to his mouth by the back of his neck.

When they get back to their rooms, Neil's fingers are cold, but his face is almost warm. Matt doesn't ask.

* * *

"Don't come crying to me when someone breaks your face," Andrew says.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> there are? 74 kudos on this thing? i am disgusted and also so happy i could screma


	6. six

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Neil returns, and something Aaron says raises uncomfortable questions in his mind.

For all Nathaniel knows, Andrew was with the team the whole time Nathaniel was—with Lola. For all he knows, they saw the marks appear on his face, his hands. Andrew's arms are covered, which is a thing to be thankful for, but his face isn't. The idea that they witnessed the entire thing is horrifying. He was there for most of it, but he was bound, and his range of vision was reduced due to the pain. To see the marks when they were fresh is something Neil does not want, for himself or for the other Foxes.

When Nathaniel sees Andrew, he almost recoils. His face is a mess. A burn that is clearly Nathaniel's colors half of it, horrible scarring from the cheekbone downwards where Lola had got him. On the other side is a dark bruise that runs from his eye to the cheekbone, that's left his eye reddened. On top of that are the lines left by Lola's knife. Those, at least, will heal in time.

"They could have blinded you. All that time fighting and you never learned how to duck?"

Andrew doesn't respond, of course not. Instead, he pushes Nathaniel's hood off, and in a move that reminds him of that January, slowly pulls away the bandages on his face, like checking to see if the scars are there. They are, of course, mirrored in Andrew's own face.

The Foxes have seen Andrew's face already, but the difference between real scars and soulmarks are in their weight. The bumpy skin of a real scar is what makes it real, what makes it look like more than, say, a large birthmark. If Andrew's face looks a mess, then Nathaniel doesn't want to know what his own resembles. He tries to look at his hands, but the scarring is hidden by his bands.

While Andrew looks, turning his face one way and another with a guiding hand on his chin, Nathaniel studies Andrew's face—his expression now. There is violence in his eyes, a tension in his shoulders, that Nathaniel thinks he hasn't seen before. It's the same fury that Andrew showed with Allison, but more. Stronger.

For him, or at him? Or both?

"I'm sorry," Nathaniel says. When he had jokingly apologized for his face, he hadn't meant it like this.

Andrew's fist goes up for a swing.

* * *

When the first of the investigators leave the room for the first time in what might be hours, Neil turns to look at Andrew. Despite them having been in the same room for the whole of the questioning session, Andrew has not said a word. Neil imagines it isn't difficult for him. Neil had done plenty of talking for the both of them while answering the FBI's questions.

"Andrew," he says, after a second of silence.

"Don't," Andrew replies, so Neil doesn't. He isn't sure what he would have said, anyway.

* * *

Just before Andrew kissed Neil for the second time, Neil had said that it was okay if he hated him. This was putting it lightly; at the time, the only reason he had kissed Andrew was because he hated him. Attraction was dangerous, but as long as it was just physical, maybe, _maybe_ it didn't matter so much. Neil was less concerned with Andrew wanting to kiss him than he would have been if Andrew had said he liked him. He didn't need that, then, because he was about to die.

Except. Except now he has somehow survived his father, somehow _outlived_ him—and he's lived to return to Exy, to the Foxes. To Andrew, even. He's Neil Josten again, and chances are the Moriyamas might still kill him, but for now he is alive.

Neil doesn't know if that's what changed his mind, but something has. Because right now, right now, Andrew's accusation stings, (but here, Neil is sure, he has been played into—something. Revealing his motivation? In his own twisted way, Aaron may even have been protecting his brother) but Nicky's stings too. _Nicky thought there was something going on because you were soulmates_ , Aaron had said, _but he was wrong then, and we all know Andrew doesn't care. It's probably just hate-sex, isn't it?_

Is there such a thing as hate-kissing?

This is bothering Neil more than it should. He doesn't intend to talk to Andrew about it, but he doesn't want it to stew in his mind, either. He wants it to just go away. Really, his staying alive shouldn't make much difference to his thing with Andrew. Whether it is hate-sex or not shouldn't make any difference to him. Except, it is. Something has changed, and Neil doesn't know what, or when, or why.

For a second, he presses fingers lightly to his face, to the discolored skin under his eye where Andrew has a bruise, and wonders if it might be because of this. But the next second, he shakes himself. It doesn't matter that something has changed, because their soulmarks have nothing to do with it.

* * *

The next day, he decides it doesn't matter.

* * *

"Wait, he chose Neil over you? Guess they are soulmates, after all," Nicky says to Aaron, but Aaron looks mostly unsurprised and Neil is the one who's been hrown for a loop. Neil knows the twins relationship isn't great, but he had not for a second expected Andrew to ever choose him over Aaron. Nicky turns to Neil and raises his eyebrows. "News to you too, huh?"

Aaron says something, and Neil must give the correct response, because Aaron turns back to Katelyn. Neil almost runs up the stairs, key to his new dorm room in his hand. Andrew is buried in his beanbag, a bottle in his hand, and doesn't look up when Neil enters. Neil didn't expect him to.

He wonders when Aaron told him they were going to switch rooms. He wonders how Andrew had responded: with a silent do-what-you-want gesture? With words? Fists? Somehow, though he knows it happens every Wednesday, he can't imagine Andrew and Aaron having a civil conversation when neither are in danger.

Andrew lets him take the bottle away and pulls him down. Neil goes, but he braces himself with one hand on the carpet, keeping him off Andrew. The other hand lands somewhere near Andrew's head, in good position to curl into his hair. Andrew drags a hand down his shoulder to his wrist, fingers catching where Neil's armband meets his skin.

"Last time I checked, you hated me," he says. It doesn't come out half as—shocked? confused? exhilarated?—as he feels.

"Everything about you."

It's this easy acceptance that he hates Neil that he expects from Andrew, not—not being chosen like this. Right now, it goes so far against what he has just agreed to, that Neil counters him instead of going with it. It's not the first time he doubted it, but it is the first time he is absolutely certain that Andrew does not  _quite_ hate him. "I'm not as stupid as you think I am," he says.

But maybe he is.

* * *

Andrew is a loud "I hate you", rough kisses pushing him into the bed, a repeated "yes or no?", hair under his curled hands, a key in his palm, "stay" whispered in his ears. He is a grounding point and the dream of a life and a future (a future that also involves Exy) and a solid hand at the back of his neck.

He is not Neil's soulmate  
—soulmate is too cliched and idealist a word, filled with implications of destiny and fate and happily ever after, and none of them have ever been led by destiny, neither have ever allowed themselves to sink into fate, they have fought to stay alive and to get here, so no, they are not soulmates, just two people who have matching marks on their bodies—  
but Neil thinks he likes him anyway.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> can't believe i wrote a soulmates au about kids insisting that they're Not Soulmates? but of course perfect satisfaction with your own writing is a myth, so. here it is.  
> a huge huge thank you to everyone who has kudos-ed and commented here and reblogged or liked the post on tumblr, because you all have absolutely made my day with each one?  
> if you ever want to talk to me about this or anything tfc, i'm always crying on tumblr at [neilexysts](http://neilexysts.tumblr.com/) !
> 
> EDIT: tumblr user broship-addict made some [amazing art](http://broship-addict.tumblr.com/post/143726145572/andrew-doesnt-respond-of-course-not-instead) for this fic, so check it out! honestly, i am so amazed.

**Author's Note:**

> soulmate aus are my favourite thing fight me!!

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Now I'm Covered in the Colors by alaynes [Podfic]](https://archiveofourown.org/works/6421654) by [Rhea314 (Rhea)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rhea/pseuds/Rhea314)




End file.
